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“Would ya look at that? Amazing isn’t it?” I was on the front porch, vigorously shaking out a rug that had sat in my entry hall for the past year. The accumulated dust sent waves of tiny speckles into the air as the bold red and green and gold patterns in the carpet rose and fell in the spring afternoon. I had been diligently cleaning all day—scrubbing cabinets, washing curtains, mopping floors, and this was the last piece before dinner. When he called out to me from the street I was startled. “It’s an owl’s nest. See it?” he said pointing up. I focused my eyes skyward and there it was, high in the tree. “Do you see the little baby?” he continued, “right there.” “Oh, my goodness,” I exclaimed, I didn’t even know all of this was going on just outside my house. I’ve been so busy inside that I haven’t noticed.” He smiled at me and glanced at the rug in my hand. I continued, “I’m doing some spring cleaning. Trying to get this house in order after a year of neglect.” He was leaning on his hastily parked, battered blue Ford truck cluttered with construction materials in the bed. His gaze drifted gently upward again and then back to me. “You got kids?” he asked. “Yes, a grown daughter, and two grandsons,” I answered, “but they live hours away. How about you?” “Oh, I got me two kids,” he said smiling broadly. “I’d like to be a big bird,” he continued pointing up again, “and fly around looking at the whole world. Just free and soaring. You know the story of Icarus?” I did. “Well,” he continued, “when I was in high school my dad, he told me that story when I said I wanted to go to college to be an engineer. I had good grades and all, but he told me how Icarus’s father built Icarus the wings with wax and told him not to fly too high or they’d melt in the sun and then he’d crash into the sea. Icarus didn’t listen and he drowned. He told me that I’d be better off working construction, like he did. He could get me a good job with his company and I wouldn’t have to worry about no college. College—it was too high for me. My wings would melt he said. I was better off.” He sighed and looked up. I followed his gaze and then asked him, “So did you get angry with him?” “Naw. He was doing the best he could. He just didn’t want me to be disappointed I guess. And it’s been a good life. Can’t complain.” “So what about your kids,” I asked, “what are they doing?” He answered: “One of them is in college, graduate school—wants to be an archeologist. Digging up ancient buildings and such. Learning about old civilizations. He tells me all sorts of stories that I love. The other is in trade school—he’s going to be a fine, fine carpenter. My wife and I—we’re real proud of our boys.” There seemed to be movement in the nest and we both looked up, but too late. All was still now. He continued, “I told them that they could be anything that they set their minds to, and I’d help, but they had to do it on their own. I figured out that instead of building them wings, like Icarus’s dad did, I’d help them build their own. That way they’d figure for themselves how high they could fly, and they could adjust them all the time. Wouldn’t have to rely on my design ‘cause they’d have their own. Seems to me, best we can do for our kids is teach them how to fly and be there to catch them if they start to fall so we can help them up again. You know—help them be strong inside themselves.” We both nodded. The sun was going down and a steel gray darkness began spreading in the sky. “Well,” he said, “I better get home soon, and you got your house to finish.” I laughed, “Yes, getting my own nest ready. Our daughter and grandsons will be here soon to visit. The boys have gotten so big this past year—really grown. One is learning to play the piano and the other knows everything about computers now. I can’t wait to see them.” And then, our eyes drawn upward by movement, we saw it: a tiny baby owl slowly make its way onto a nearby branch. We both watched silently, breathlessly willing it to succeed, as it gingerly made its way to the left—teetering—almost tumbling but catching itself and then going back to the right and returning to the nest. An adult owl looked on. “Yup,” my new friend said to me as he doffed his paint-splattered cap and walked slowly to open the door of his truck, “them owls are going to have strong wings. Gotta help them build their own and then they’ll know for sure—for absolute sure—they’ll know that they can fly.” And he drove off—one long arm outstretched from his window waving good-bye, looking, just for a moment, like a soaring bird.  The baby blue jay had fallen to the ground and my father ran out to the side yard of our borrowed house in Larchmont, New York to rescue it. It was 1957, I was seven and he was (can it be?) thirty, and although this was the country he was born and raised in, this was the second continent and fifth house I had lived in. “It’s only temporary. Bill lent it to us while he’s in Europe.” Yes, it felt temporary. I still hadn’t gotten used to the new world I was in, and the strange new English language around me. “Abuelo,” I said to my grandfather in Spanish four months ago, before leaving Uruguay, “when will I see you again?” “I will always be in your heart, see?” he said as he showed me the latest drawing he’d made for me of a large heart surrounded by lilies of the valley, my grandmother’s favorite flower. But I knew, even then, even at seven, that only the red heart on the paper would stay together. Mine was going to break. “Papa, Father, Father, it’s there by the rosas.” From inside the dining room window I pointed at the exact spot on the window where I could see the crumpled mass of gray. How strange it was to say “father.” I liked the Spanish sound of “papa,” rounded and formed from closed lips and then a burst of energy and an outward puff of air, and then again, “pa” “pa”. But in English a forcing of air through teeth trapped on the bottom lip, the mouth hinged open and then the tongue thrust out along the teeth and a growl deep in the mouth, “fa th er.” But this was his language and his country and here we were going to live a fine life and be happy. He said so. And I wanted us to be happy. I knew things in Uruguay were bad, and there was never any money or hope. “Plata, “ there. A word meaning “silver,” something shiny and real. “Money,” here. A word that didn’t have a picture and I kept confusing with the first day of the school week. The baby bird wasn’t moving much as my father scooped it up in his gloved hands and to reassure me that it was still alive showed it to me through the window before turning to the tree, turning toward the nest. Perhaps (quizas) had we not been looking at each other through the glass and then at the almost lifeless mass in his outstretched hands, he would have seen the mother blue jay. Her attack came from some high place and was a direct and fierce stabbing of my father’s head. He yelled in pain as she pierced him once, twice, three times. Blood trickled over his ears, down his face onto his shoulders. I saw him look at me through the glass as I stood frozen with my mouth open wanting to call for some help and not finding the words or the breath. The baby in his left hand, waving off the wild mother with his right, he climbed the ladder he had leaned against the tree, and deposited his charge into the nest. When at last he came inside, before my mother saw him and fainted, before we went to the hospital, he said to me, “Sylvia, you see, this is what matters . You must always help others. It might hurt sometimes but you must help the world however you can. Remember this your whole life.”  |
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